BANGOR, Maine — Community members and business owners in Bangor say they're concerned as a syringe exchange provider in Bangor is considering setting up mobile syringe exchange services in various locations throughout the city.
After being certified by the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February to operate as a mobile syringe exchange provider, volunteers from the nonprofit Needlepoint Sanctuary said they are having continuous conversations with the City of Bangor to determine the best locations in the city to provide mobile syringe exchange services.
Needlepoint volunteer and program coordinator Dave Carvaggio said the organization's goal is to provide clean syringes to people who use drugs, to encourage harm reduction, to decrease the spread of harmful diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, and to build relationships with people who are struggling with drug use in hopes to connect them with support programs.
Carvaggio said the organization's recent approval from Maine CDC allows volunteers who work with Needlepoint approval to operate in three locations in Bangor.
Those locations include Pickering Square in downtown Bangor; Pierce Park, which is adjacent to the Bangor Public Library; and near the intersection of Texas and University Ave., which is near both the University of Maine Augusta at Bangor and the city's largest homeless encampment.
With the drug epidemic in the community worsening, Carvaggio said it's important to meet people who are struggling with drug use where they are.
According to Carvaggio, many people who use drugs and who rely on syringe service providers happen to be unhoused.
Circumstances like lack of reliable transportation often prevents people who are unhoused and who actively use drugs from getting to other brick and mortar syringe exchange provider locations Carvaggio said.
"There's no syringe service program out there saying that 'Hey, we're going to solve the issues of homelessness and substance abuse,'" Carvaggio said. "What we're saying is that we're going to reduce the rates of HIV, we're going to reduce the rates of hepatitis C, and we're going to prevent overdose and provide care and services to people who are in desperate need of those services."
There are only two other certified syringe service programs in Bangor and Penobscot County. Those programs are operated by Bangor Health Equity Alliance and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness.
He explained positioning volunteers who work from vehicles in various places in the city where unhoused people tend to dwell helps the organization extend its reach and eliminates common roadblocks and limitations that often stand in the way of safe needle use.
But business owners in the downtown area said they believe offering syringe exchange services in community spaces will do more harm than good.
"I understand that people are in bad situations, but when you're turning away homeless people, or you have a child that's coming in who has never experienced any of this stuff, how are you supposed to explain that?" Braeden DeTour, owner of Stay Gold barbershop downtown, said. "And then you look at a parent and say, 'I'm sorry that I gave your child the education that they probably shouldn't have had.'"
DeTour said he sees where the organization is trying to help, but he explained providing syringe exchange services in the downtown area will hurt business owners.
Needlepoint has been operating for five years. Carvaggio said people often hear "needle exchange" and immediately limit the organization's work in the community to providing clean needles.
He said people often overlook the fact that the organization also works to provide acute wound care, referrals for STD testing, connect unhoused people and people struggling with drug use to case managers that help with housing, and helps route people struggling with addiction who are seeking help to detox rehabs sober houses.
Carvaggio said when syringe service providers are not able to operate, it results in a rise in the transfer of STDs, overdoses, and the use of unsanitary syringes.
Carvaggio also stated that over the five years that the organization has operated, volunteers have provided naloxone to several thousands of people, helping to reverse more than 1,000 overdoses in the county.
Dr. Leah Kelley, who was visiting friends in Bangor, said she practices medicine in Oakland, California, a city where homelessness and drug use is on a constant rise.
Kelley said offering mobile syringe services can increase harm reduction, which she said she believes is a crucial strategy for keeping people who use drugs alive.
"When it comes to the use of intravenous drugs, people are going to use safely or unsafely. So, when we make it safe, we keep people alive," Kelley said. "When people are alive, they have an opportunity for treatment, they have an opportunity to make their lives better," Kelley said. "They have an opportunity to continue to raise their children and be with their families."
Kelley said providing safe syringes to people who use drugs can be an opportunity to provide support where it's needed.
"The amazing thing about safe needle exchanges is that it's also an opportunity for education, for intervention," Kelley said. "You can have supplies of Narcan available so you can treat and prevent overdoses. So, it's not just a clean needle."
Kelley said although offering mobile syringe services may introduce children to complex human struggles, it's important for adults to approach all situations regarding drug use and homelessness with proper communication.
"Kids see us, kids see what's happening around them. And so, they're asking questions that we should be asking too. Why are we allowing people to use on the street when there could be a safe environment for them? Why are we allowing people to be homeless when there are policies that could reduce homelessness?" Kelley said. "The question is not why do we have to discuss hard things with kids, it's why are we not giving kids answers that they can live with and that we can live with? Hard things aren't going away."
Kelley said anyone can fall victim to drug addiction, and having services offered by organizations like Needlepoint available when people are in need is critical.
NEWS CENTER Maine spoke with several business owners who were completely against the proposal, but they declined to comment publicly due to their fear of losing clientele because of their disapproval.
City manager Debbie Laurie said she's working closely with Needlepoint and Maine CDC to find common ground for everyone in the community, but she explained syringe service providers that receive certification through the CDC don't have to receive approval from the city to operate on public or city owned property.
"The good news is that they've been open and willing to have the conversations," Laurie said. "If we can't have conversations as community members and come to a collaborative consensus, then that's a problem."
Laurie said volunteers at Needlepoint have had an open ear to all of the concerns community members and business owners have presented over the last month.
Volunteers from organization technically have the right to begin mobile syringe exchange services in the locations that Maine CDC has already permitted them to operate in, but Carvaggio said the organization is holding off because volunteers believe maintaining a good relationship with the city is important.
Although organizations that apply through the CDC to become certified syringe providers don't have to get permission from the city to operate on public property, they do need permission from private owners to operate on privately owned property.
Carvaggio said the organization is still working towards coming to an agreement with the city to determine other potential operating locations. He said the organization is also looking to find a brick-and-mortar location.